THE MORNING OF MY FLIGHTI awoke the morning of the day I was to fly back to the US, two and a half weeks in Burkina Faso, and my time had come to an end. Unexpectedly, I had quickly come to love the people and this land. With 12 hours until my flight that evening, I was going to try to make the best of my remaining time. They had become used to the hustle and bustle and cram as much as possible into a day as possible ways about me and knew they were in store for a busy. If I were a local, I would be resting up for my travels.

Leading up to this final morning in Mother Africa, I had diarrhea and gut issues for a week. That topped with the fact that the anxiety and emotions of travel often resulted in gut issues, it appeared that this day was going to be no different. I mean, when I saw the red dirt from the plan on arrival, I had cried that I’d have to leave, so it was not surprising that I had a stomach ache upon rising.

It was 9:00AM and no one else was awake in the house, or at least out of their rooms. I went out to the living room and turned on the fan to help stave off the eventual overheating of my body that the day would bring. The walk from my room, down the hallway to the living room made my stomach hurt more, so I laid down on the couch. Soon after Idrissa emerged, and I could hardly sit up to greet him. I tried to play off the pain as I did the night before at my going away party.

Friends and family came to wish me well over kebabs and the local beer. Kaba wore a floor length, silver, spaghetti strap dress and newly braided locks that took multiple people over eight hours to style. I don’t remember what I wore, but I know it was something cotton and comfortable because my stomach hurt terribly. When Kaba asked about my muted style and personality, I played it off and said I was sad to be leaving. While true, it wasn’t the whole truth.

When Nikiema greeted me, I tried to pass off my stomach ache and general blah feeling as the a typical morning after a party, but when I couldn’t sit up or get off of the couch to go to breakfast, it was clear I wasn’t well. I couldn’t worry anymore about being the stereotypical white woman with gut issues. I’ve had a long history of severe stomach pain, so up to this point, for all I knew it may have been a minor issue. I didn’t even know I had been in two hours of labor because I was used to cramping that crippled me over from from eating dairy, gluten and other foods.

TO THE CLINIC WE GOMy illness progressed quickly as we rode to the clinic. By the time we arrived, I was feverish and dizzy, like I had a bad buzz. Getting from the waiting room to exam room proved difficult and I couldn’t walk on my own from lack of coordination and feeling a little delirious. The ten minutes from arrival to exam was long enough for me to spike a high fever and barely keep conscious. Walking back to the room was a bad roller coaster ride as I felt my stomach in my throat, like my head had been left behind at the start and my body was at the finish being told to exit the ride.

The doctor’s first thought was malaria, but a blood test quickly ruled it out. I very well could have had malaria since I quit taking my anti-malarial pills. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, but after a week of not sleeping and hallucinations when I’d start to sleep, it was a necessity. While in Ouagadougou I had a mosquito net, plus, mosquitos have never really bothered me, so I wan’t as worried as I probably should have been. The theories I’ve heard are mosquitos are attracted to carbon monoxide (which my breathing is interfered with because of chronic sinusitis) and vitamin D, which I’m deficient in as a lifetime resident of MN. So I didn’t have anything they wanted and felt semi confident in my decision to end my prevention treatment.

I’m not sure how I got from the exam room to the car, but at some point Traore had arrived and said this clinic wasn’t good enough me. He arranged for me to go to the hospital where foreign diplomats went to get the best care. In MN we hate flu season—the puking, fever, chills, body aches—but the flu was a picnic compared to the fever consuming control over my body as we travel to the new health facility.

My friend helped walk me into the international hospital where staff escorted me directly to an exam room. I, with my limited French skills and friend who spoke minimal English, tried to detail the frequency, consistency and contents of my bowel movements of the previous week. Language struggles aside, this kind of talk was against the etiquette training I had as a Miss Princess of my hometown. I saw things that I didn’t eat in my BMs. It seemed like grass or hay, but I obviously couldn’t examine much. In hindsight, maybe they were worms. Either my semi-coherent poop ramblings translated well, or they were confident in knowing which tests to run on white ladies with stomach aches, as tests were run and I was admitted into the hospital.

Though I was brought to the best health care facility in the country, I thought I walked, albeit uncoordinatedly even with assistance, through a time warp to the 1940s in the United States or the Cuba shown in movies, with nurses wearing stiff, straight lined, white, knee length dresses. I wasn’t alive during WWII, so this feeling was based on the hospital scenes in Pearl Harbor, circa 2000ish. White tiles lined the walls and floors, and a contraption that can only be described as jumper cables with bells—I can’t remember what it was used for as I was pretty out of it, but seeing them weirded me out, like I was in a bad horror movie about to be tortured. I was sick enough that I was admitted into the equivalent of the ICU in the US, with a nurse’s room attached to mine, separated only by a window for observation.

Although I was extremely ill, I didn’t receive a diagnoses. They presumed it was a bacteria infection because everything else was ruled out—not my first or last diagnosis based on exclusion and getting the, “We know your sick, we just don’t know why.” words from the doctor that were supposed to somehow be comforting. What was new though was that I wasn’t upset about being in the hospital.

HOSPITALIZATIONSDuring my 30 plus years, I had multiple hospitalizations—as a four year old with pneumonia and because they put my IV in my right hand and I had to color left handed, that’s how I became ambidextrous, for weeks the summer going into seventh grade when I ruptured my liver and ended up missing the first month of junior high, giving birth to my daughter, or when I had my hysterectomy and gall bladder removed, both out patient procedures that resulted in multiple day stays and extended healing times— so I knew how to operate bed remotes to get comfortable. On this day though, from my uncomfortable, non-electric with no remote, adjustable bed that moved in large, manual increments making it impossible to find the comfort sweet spot, I could hear my plane take off from the airport. I knew it was my plane because back then, they had very few flights and you knew which was yours. At the time I didn’t have a diagnosis, so I laid in my bed, waiting to contact my parents until I had something to tell them to avoid needless worrying. They had seen me at the doctor and in the hospital too many times, and for the first time, they weren’t with me.

Even with this history, I hated being in the hospital, although I was lucky enough to always have my family by my side, and they would adorned me with gifts and food from the outside. Before my accident the summer going into seventh grade, I remember going to Thrifty White Drug at the mall. Up high on the shelf was a stuffed lion that was almost half my size and well out of our family’s price range. I thought it was coolest thing ever! I left the store with him still up on the shelf. After exploratory surgery that revealed I had ruptured my liver after running down the hill and tripping on tree saplings, I recovered after rupturing my liver and then bleeding internally for a week, as Leo the Lion comforted me in my hospital bed in the hospital and the one in our living room for a month as I recovered. Twenty-five years later, I still have him and remember the time I saw a tunnel of light, and then woke up from surgery to a room full of my family.

Even though I didn’t have my family by my side, this time however, I felt I was given a gift, and not just because I didn’t have to wear a hospital gown. Maybe all of those times with love and concern from my family prepared me to do this alone. Although sick, my trip in this magical place was extended. I received an unwrapped gift. Who can be upset when invited to stay longer? Although bacteria made it happen, I wasn’t upset at the result.

I spent two days and one night in the hospital, and then went back to the home of my new family. How happy was I that when I purchased my ticket, hospitalization was a reason to get a free ticket date transfer? I was weak, but the next day I needed to go to the cyber cafe to rebook my ticket. Today we are in the land of 4G, free wifi, and fast streaming. In that cyber though, made of scrap wood and metal with a dirt floor and less than ten computers lining the tables, the dial up connection was slower than the slowest dial up I had experienced in the 90s in the US. It didn’t help that the rain came and disconnected everything. It’s not cheap for the super slow access either.

RESCHEDULING MY RETURNAfter two days of trying to reschedule flights that were only available Tuesday and Saturday, I found out I needed a special form. We had already driven 45 minutes across town to get a doctor’s note, but now we needed to do it again with a special form that I couldn’t print because the power went out again. I was released from the hospital on Saturday, but I wasn’t getting out on the Tuesday flight to my family’s dismay. While I enjoyed more dancing, sightseeing, art making and making friends, my mother threatened to have Governor Dayton send the National Guard to retrieve me. I explained that I wasn’t being kept against my will, but in order to not pay huge fees for a new ticket, I needed to play the airline’s games, while having access to limited resources. As a mother and looking back, I can only imagine the anxiety and worry my family felt knowing I was sick, in a foreign land and not able to return to them timely.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect for me though as I was laid off from my job during the government shutdown of summer 2011. Though delayed, I wasn’t missing work, which would have been a big concern. My daughter was well cared for by my family so I didn’t have to worry about her. As soon as I landed on US soil, I received a call that the shut down was over and I had a job to report to on Monday.

Before I could get the paperwork signed at the hospital, I needed to pay the for two days in the ICU. Needless to say, they didn’t accept my insurance, nor would my insurance cover the expense even if they did. How much does two days in ICU with a nurse constantly in your room cost in the US? I was so scared for the bill, knowing what just non-ICU cost at home. $1,000 US dollars for 30 hours of care, tests and medication. What a deal! I later learned that the locals don’t have access to the timely or quality of care I received. While extremely grateful for my positive outcome, survivor guilt hit me hard.

However, it was more money than I had, so I made the expensive phone call to my parents to request a deposit into my bank account as the hospital didn’t take credit cards. My dad’s sister-in-law’s father had recently been out of the country and was exploited for money before he could return to the US. I feel like we came up with a code word but my dad and I can’t remember. Even still, I had to reassure my family that this was not happening in my case. I was well cared for and while they didn’t want me to leave, they were going to let me go.

A week after my original flight, the doctor cleared me for flying, completed my paperwork so the airline could give me a new ticket, and I was headed to the airport a different person than I was when I arrived three and a half weeks previous. How was I different? Why was it life changing? At the time, I maybe didn’t know it, but it would manifest in my life in ways I never imagined.

I’ve always been the traveler that when I visit a place, I connect to it. Not through the tourist trap sites, but the nature, history of indigenous people, culture and art. I’ve tried moving out of the St Cloud, MN area so many times, that when I see hope in a place, I try to make a move happen. This is especially so of NYC, Hawaii and Chicago. Burkina Faso now was no exception to that, but I actually found myself wondering if I had to leave.

That was new. What would happen if I stay? I have a job that I’m miserable at. I’d be away from my family, but all of them have moved away at some point, and I never have, so why couldn’t I? I have a seven year old daughter that would miss her family and friends, but if I moved her to Burkina Faso, I couldn’t afford to send her to the international school where they speak English, as she doesn’t speak French.

I would never leave her, but I did wonder if she would be happier without me. I was a worn out, single mom, tired from lack of sleep, and unable physically to play with her as other parents do their kids, even before my car accident four years prior. Would my family care for her? Of course if I died they would, but what about if I chose to leave? I couldn’t see her being happy in Burkina Faso. That was just her personality. I couldn’t see myself being happy while on high alert trying to keep her safe from danger and from getting sick, as she was a very oral child and she would contract something, or many things. All these questions and more plagued me as I was nearing the end of my trip, just as the questions of my family did before I left.

When I returned to the US, my body was a mess—physically and spiritually. I was going through a shift, and how could I not after feeling called to embark on a new journey into art and humanitarianism. I was having trouble with my memory and was loosing control of my muscles, so I would stagger when I walked and fall into the wall. The doctors were certain that whatever made me sick in Burkina Faso or another disease came home with me. After 9 months of constant doctoring, it was revealed that I had Lyme’s Disease.

All the concern and blame on “foreign” diseases and travel, and I contracted my disease while in Minnesota’s own back yard. Again, it didn’t bother me so much that I was sick, but saw it as a great educational moment for doctors to not make assumptions about their patients, especially immigrants and refugees. I was a white woman who chose to travel, and “those” diseases were blamed for my illness. Had my doctors been more open mind, they may have uncovered my diagnosis sooner. I hope their time with me propelled them to a new level of understanding when working with difference groups of people.

PAINTED HUTSAfter a couple of days in the city, I arrived in the village from my paintings and computer screen. Laid out before me, dozens of pieces of artwork hand painted on to huts that made up the chief’s palace. Diamonds, triangles and diagonal lines were painted in black and white on red earth dirt. Animal shapes were present sporadically too. After a tour through the maze of circular and rectangular huts with designs, we returned to two ladies mixing up a grey dirt concoction that was the texture of compacted sand for making sand castles, but stickier like wet clay at a potter’s wheel. They used their hands to spread the mix on the side of the hut wall. Once the outside wall was covered, the ladies applied another layer. This mixture was the color of red earth dirt and had almost a glossy or finish feel and look to it. The second layer was applied the same way, but was smoothed out. Once the structure was covered in red, it was time to paint.

I didn’t see how either mixture was made, nor what the ingredients were. I know nothing about African hut building, or even the Native American prairie mud houses that I saw at local museums growing up. Imagine my surprise when I returned to the city and learned that cow dung was used in the mixture. Poop! My bare hands smeared cow poop on the wall, just as the elderly man had done when I was doing my nursing clinicals.

When my daughter was under two months old, I started a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) program. I had a bad experience in the hospital when my biracial daughter was born. I didn’t want other diverse families to experience the same, so I enrolled. Bonus, healthcare is guaranteed work in the future and good pay for a single mom. I lived with my parents and they helped care for my daughter while I worked to get my degree. An elder man kept trying to touch my butt one day on rounds, and I would position myself so he couldn’t. When I went in later to change him, he took his diaper off and smeared his bowel movement on the wall. I quit nursing after that. One year completed of a two year degree left unfinished. Fast forward seven years, and I was now the smearer.

PAINTING WITH KAYEThen I met Kaye. I didn’t know her name at that point, but I knew it was her when I saw her. The woman who mentored me in my dreams was sitting before me, next to the decorated huts like we painted in my slumber. You know the dream; where the person is there but you don’t see their face, yet when you see them in real life, you know it’s them. Her positioning of curled up and hunched over was that of a body wearing out or to avoid the sun. Either was possible as beads of sweat piled on her neck like a sparkly makeshift necklace, and as she slowly stood, she coaxed each of her joints; first hands on her knees, then hips and finally low back.

Her hands, the color of milk chocolate, were rough with tales of hard-work and experience. They reminded me of my grandfather’s blacksmith hands, and the lava soap he scrubbed with, but they were never truly clean. Though rough, there was something so gentle, soothing and inviting about those hands. They also appeared to be magnetized as our hands instinctively joined.

After moments of silence, that could have been seconds or minutes but had a lifetime of impact, and gazing into each other’s eyes, she handed me a feather and bowl of what I presumed was homemade black paint. Like a long lost friend that you don’t need to talk to because you already know everything about each other, we began to paint the wall of the hut.

When we got out of sync our hands and feathers met in the bowl. She paused and stared down at our connection. Our hands, that of elder and young, black and white, experienced and apprentice, were working together telling ancient stories through geometric shapes and without any words spoken.

I guess it’s a good thing I found out about the poop after the fact or I would have missed a great experience. The ladies started patterns using a chicken feather and black paint, and then I would follow their guidance. Just like the wall spread, I didn’t know how the paint was made. The pigment was strong though because it stained my fingers instantly.

On the last section, they told me to create my own pattern. Knowing that the designs had special meanings, as well has historical and cultural significance, I asked if they were sure. Given the green light, I created curly lines with circles in the curves of the line. I told them I did this on the paintings I created that led me to learning about the village and their art. I asked them if the symbol I painted had any meaning to them—music. I wasn’t sure why I was creating that because I didn’t think music had much of a role in my life. So of all of the symbols, why would I use this one, I thought.

When I returned I returned to the city, I told Nikiema about this and he wasn’t surprised, so I inquired why. He reminded me that in only a week with me, he saw me dancing multiple times on different dance floors, in the car, in my seat at the dinner table, at the art centers and more. Whether I was tapping my foot, moving my butt or shoulders while seated or upright and using my whole body, I was always moving to music. I hadn’t noticed, but looking back, I saw what he was saying. I do love African music, but I hadn’t realized it’s impact on me.

And of course music was a part of me. I had just stepped away from it. Growing up I loved to sing at church and in the school choir. My dad and his dad were known for singing, “On eagle’s wings.” I never felt that I was in their league though. However, I was better than my brother and mom, who said that God gave her the voice so he had to listen to it because she enjoyed to sing, even if it was off pitch. My brother didn’t care what people thought of his singing; he just sang. A trait I admire. One Father’s Day I was scheduled to sing Bette Midler’s “Wind beneath my wings” at church, but I was getting laryngitis. Some how, I mustered up the vocals and sang my heart out. I couldn’t speak for a few days after. Looking at these song titles now, I wonder if our name, Drake which means male duck, had anything to do with our song selections.

I didn’t just sing, but I played music as a child as well. I taught myself to play guitar in the 3rd grade and in 4th I took piano lessons. In junior high I played the flute. I was always challenging or being challenged by Carrie for first chair. My band career ended in high school when I couldn’t be in marching band. Back then they had wool uniforms, and that coupled with my inability to sweat, just overheat, meant my music days were over.

Stress of life or being an adult, or maybe a little of both, caused me to forget how important music was to me. It was still in me though, I just wasn’t paying attention to its power. Not to mention that all events in my life can be associated with a song. Senior prom- California Love by 2Pac. My wedding- I don’t want to miss a thing by Aerosmith from the movie Armageddon.

When we were done painting the patterns of shapes, white chalky rocks were rubbed on the wall to add another layer of color. They also helped to blend the layers and colors together into a cohesive artwork on the wall. When we were done, a liquid substance was used to cover the mural. I was told it was a temporary sealant to protect it from the weather and that in the morning they would put on the permanent sealer.

ART AFTER THE VILLAGEI was so sucked into the experience, being present in this living art village with women who carried the symbol knowledge passed down by generations of ancestors, that the fine details escaped me. It wasn’t until after this life changing experience that I began to question things. Upon returning home, I learned that the symbols date back to the 16th century and served as a status symbol and defense. The circular huts are for single people and rectangular are for couples. Huts also house the living and the dead.

At home it was just me painting alone—sad and mending a broken heart. Painting in Tiebele with Kaye was the beginning of a collective experience that changed lives. I was becoming the artist I wanted to be as a child. Through conversations with the villagers, it was decided that I’d try to sell my artwork to fundraise for projects in Tiebele, starting with water and sanitation, and moving to health, education and employment.

The day came, just over a month after I left Burkina Faso, for me to bring my artwork to a local show. I reverted to the shy, red head with freckles and turning red from attention that I was before my adventurous trip. I couldn’t put myself out there to be vulnerable and judged. “No Way!” scream my inner terrified six year old version of myself. A voice inside my head, or from a miniature version of myself on my shoulder, said, “I never thought you were so selfish!” I was caught off guard and replied, “What do you mean? Why am I selfish? And why am I talking to myself?” The voice said, “You promised those women and children that you’d sell your artwork to fundraise for clean water and sanitation in the village. But you’re shy and vulnerable, so go ahead and stay home. It’s not like they will DIE without access. Oh, wait, 24,000 children under the age of five in Burkina Faso die each year from preventable diarrheal diseases.”

And just like that, my artwork was packed into the car and on its way to my first art exhibition.

Summer outdoor events in MN are countless, as are the the port-a-potties. Heat, humidity, cheap beer and bad truck food makes for some stinky adventures. You know the smell, a tiny room that hundreds or thousands contribute to with no ventilation. Given my super sense of smell, there were many times during my stay in Burkina Faso that I longed for that smell. Excrement and vomit are two smells that in even mild doses make me gag, or maybe even puke. These urges found me many times during my stay. I wondered how people could stand to live among the smells, but quickly realized, they didn’t have a choice.

Although everyone poops, talking about passing gas, farting, or heaven forbid doing it in public, having diarrhea, having to go number two, or anything of the like has always been an embarrassing topic for me. I’m not sure why when that’s not the case for many of those around me, but maybe my formal training in “being a lady” from my modeling days had something to do with it. Preparing for my travel to Burkina Faso, I knew toilets, toilet paper, and medicine for an upset stomach, would be in short supply, so I packed travel size tissue packs and hand sanitizer that I could replenish my purse with, and a prescription for traveler’s diarrhea. In an effort to avoid using these items, I never intentionally drank the local water. I even brushed my teeth with my precious, expensive, bottled water. These things were much easier to accomplish in the city though than in the village, which I would soon find out.

TOILETS IN THE CITYI knew toilets were limited in the village, but ignorance, that’s the only word I can think of to describe it, led me to the assumption that access would be different in the city. You know what they say about assuming right? Finding a toilet for that ass was an adult scavenger hunt. Even if there was a toilet in someone’s house, toilet paper was a rarity. I learned quickly to keep TP in my purse at all times—even when at home. Public toilets took it a step further. There definitely was no toilet paper and often no such thing as a public toilet room.

Being white carries privilege that I have spent my career fighting against or make sure to share the benefits I receive with others. Privilege abounded on my trip, and I found myself ok when it meant that I was offered access to an actual toilet. This was especially true once my diarrhea and gut issues started. While presented with a bathroom, sometimes that meant a hole to squat over, a toilet without a seat, and my true horror— no flushing ability so someone would come manually do it and see the mess I left. So embarrassing!

One day while at a public place I asked for a toilet and I was present a wall. I wasn’t trying to judge, but what was I supposed to do with a wall?! Nikiema left quickly so I couldn’t ask him, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask out of sheer embarrassment. I looked around for a hole in the floor but nothing. By the smell I knew people had relieved themselves here. A woman came by and I walked away around the corner where I could peek to see what she did. I felt like a peeping Tom, but I really needed to know how to pee here.

With her butt facing the wall, she lifted the back of her skirt and bent forward. Then she left. What just happened?! After a little detective work, I concluded that she positioned her body to pee on the wall and it ran down into the small gap between the wall and floor. This was very different from squatting, which I still hadn’t mastered by the way. I continued to get urine on my feet, and sometimes also on my leg or even clothing, depending on what I was wearing. Thankfully I was able to hold my urge to poop at this time. Can you imagine? Trying to pee on the wall made even more of a mess on me than squatting. I was so thankful no one came around the corner to witness the mess I was in at this moment— literally and figuratively. How did people do this? They learned at a young age I assumed. I was over thirty years of age and it was like I was being potty trained for a second time in my life.

I began to think about the public restrooms in Germany from my visit when I was 16 in the mid-90’s. At the time, I remember thinking it was ridiculous to pay to enter the stall or for the toilet paper. I don’t know which one had to be paid for, but right now in Burkina Faso, 20 years later, I’d be happy to pay for the luxury of access to a toilet and toilet paper.

RELIEVING ONESELF IN THE VILLAGEOnce I arrived in the village, I longed for the hole in the floor, even the wall to aim at, as I was told to just find a place to go. My mother spends countless hours outside hunting and fishing. Finding a place to relieve and not pee on herself is a skill she has and most definitely didn’t pass onto me. Even if squatting wasn’t a factor, it was daylight and I didn’t want people to see me. There wasn’t woods for me to hide in and how far could I safely wander? Where was it safe from men and animals? What if I had my period or need to poop? I found myself on high alert.

Again my privilege came into play when my interpreter witnessed the fear on my face and wheels turning in my head trying to comprehend this task. She asked the hotel if I could use their facilities that was for guests only, and I wasn’t a guest. I was so grateful because my stomach was very upset and weird bowel movements were becoming a staple occurrence by this time in the trip. It didn’t seem to fit the description on the traveler’s diarrhea prescription, so I didn’t worry. I was just grossed out. My toilet paper and tissue count was low and I worried I’d have enough to last until returning to the city. TP rationing commenced.

There was a structure close to the huts that I was told I could use to relieve myself and shower. Like the other spots up to this point, I didn’t see any fecal mater or used tissues tossed after wiping. I kept my used tissue without poop in a baggie in my purse until I could find an appropriate place to dispose them. There was no toilet or hole. I continued my efforts to squat over a flat surface without splash up on me or my clothes, but still no luck. What I noticed later as we toured the village was that the structure drained over the main walking path between the field and the huts and ended up in the field where they were working and planting food. People walked bare foot or in shoes that allowed for exposure to the waste.

Toilets were installed in most Minnesota homes by the 1950s, yet I remember my aunt and uncle’s outhouse. They used to have a pot in the closet in case of emergency or those middle of the night urges during the dead of winter. I understand that— negative temperatures, bare butt exposed, not to mention creatures that go bump in the night— I’d have a pot too. I never put together the phrase, “so poor, didn’t have a pot to piss in,” until now.

When sleeping on the roof of the hut, I had one of those during the night urges. While it wasn’t cold, I would be exposed and didn’t know what I might find in the dead of the night. I tried to go back to sleep, but ever since I gave birth to my daughter, once I think I might need to go, it’s all I can think about. So I took my flashlight and tissue, slid into my flip flops and carefully made my way down the narrow stairs. I went to the structure because I knew what to expect and felt semi-protected. While I was safe during the act of relieving myself, my return to the roof wasn’t. I was attacked— by a hut. In my staggered slumber and dim light, I managed to stub my toe. With the number of broken toes I’ve had in my lifetime, I was sure it happened again. The morning light on my toe revealed what I knew. That color of purple is special to my breaks. That’s my favorite color, except when it’s on my body.

SHOWERINGWhen it was time to shower, I wondered how it was supposed to work. The structure came up to the top of my stomach (I was about 5’10”) and there was no door but a wide uncovered opening. My breasts stuck out above the structure and there was no curtain. I would be visible while naked. I had adapted to many things, but this was hard for me to grasp. Others did it and people didn’t seem to care, but nudity in the USA verses Burkina Faso or other parts of the world was different.

I was given a piece of material like a sarong wrap. I was told to wear it to the shower. The structure had a bucket, smaller than 5 gallons, of warm water in it when I arrived. I was instructed to save water for three others to use as well. I thought I conserved water at home, but this took it to the next level. When I inquired about my privacy, I was told to use my wrap as a shower curtain after a stick was placed across the opening. How was the act of making my wrap a curtain not going to lead to exposure?!

Slowly and strategically, I unwrapped the material that was horizontal on my body. I maneuvered the fabric to the front of my body with my butt exposed inside the structure, but it was beneath the top of the wall. I slowly turned the material to vertical, carefully covering body parts, and laid it over the stick while crouching down so my breasts weren’t exposed. This could be an Olympic sport with the precision and skill administered.

After successful installation of the shower curtain, I took my shower. I had to squat down so not to expose myself, but had to stay upright enough not to touch the ground that was soiled with human waste. A cup was provided to pour the warm water over my tired body and wash away the dirt and heat of the day. This happened in the morning and in the early evening or before bedtime. At first I thought it was excessive, but soon realized it used less water than just one shower back in the US. Also, with 115F heat, it was needed. Once bathing was complete, the cloth made its way off of the stick and onto my body the same way it came off my body.

The material was fine for a wrap and curtain, but what about drying off? This was no towel. I was told to have a seat next to the hut. I felt exposed— I was naked under this and notorious for my poor wrapping skills resulting in my towel falling off. Feeling vulnerable as I clung to my wrap in fear of embarrassment yet to come, I imagined this might be how villagers felt when white people come and view and judge them. In the time it took me to think that, I had been dried by the sun. The fact that I truly was dry proved it was a dry heat with no humidity.

MASTERING PEEING WITHOUT A TOILETAfter three to four days in the village, it was a three and a half hour car ride back home to the city. I used the hotel outhouse one last time. Given the heat and my lack of sweating, I drank a lot of water. At some point in the journey home, we pulled over to the side of the road to relieve ourselves. I had one final tissue left. Us three ladies went on one side of the road, while the chauffeur went to the other side. It had taken almost two weeks, but for the first time I squatted without getting any urine on me, anywhere, including my foot.

“I did it!” I exclaimed loudly. The interpreter and her daughter giggled at me in a manner that seemed to say, “It’s about time!” From across the road the chauffeur yells, “What is it? Is there a lion?” I mustered out a giggly, “No!” and then got a look of horror on my face. Well, I would imagine that’s how it looked as the notion that there could be lions out there ran through my head faster than I was pulling up my shorts. In my haste I littered as I didn’t even think to bag my tissue.

After starting my memoir, I found my trip journal that I hadn’t read since my visit. I had a reflection entry on my first 24 hours in the country. “I seem to be obsessed with peeing. I see people going on the side of the road, no diapers on babies, squatting because there are no toilets, no toilet paper. I don’t know why I’m so aware of this!” I didn’t remember writing or thinking those things until I read my journal, six years to the date that I booked my trip. Looking back now, I see how water and sanitation were destined in my path from the very beginning.

PAINTING“Just paint mommy. It will make you feel better,” my seven year old daughter said while looking at me with her big, sweet, brown eyes, toffee colored biracial skin and curly Afro. Although I had considered myself an artist growing up, but after being told pursuing it wasn’t a realistic career choice, I had left the arts for many years as being around it was painful. My daughter had gravitated to art naturally as I never created around her. Now, years later, fighting through the tears of a broken heart, I picked up a paintbrush and with a stroke of paint, change the course of my life in ways I never could’ve imaged in my wildest painting or dreams.

I had never seen them before, but that didn’t stop me from painting them, over and over. Mud huts with geometric shapes painted on them lined my canvas but I didn’t know why. Night after night, once my daughter slept, I’d paint them into the wee hours of the mourn guided by a daydream of a place and people that seemed to be a part of my family or a past life. Never mind that I had to wake just a few hours later for a job I hated. My need to create oozed into my mommy-daughter time, so we each made our own projects while creating together on the living room floor of the one bedroom apartment we share.

After countless hut paintings, eventually I got curious as to why I was creating them and what it could mean. I googled, “painted mud huts in Africa.” I chose Africa over other places because of all my personal and professional connections to the continent. I viewed the images from my search and found the remote village of Tiebele, Burkina Faso, West Africa, where women paint the huts as a symbol of status and to deter wild animals and enemies. I still didn’t know why I painted the huts, but I now knew there was a place that existed in reality, not just my dreams.

The pictures displayed of the village felt like they leapt out of my chest onto the computer screen. Instinctively, they were a part of me, or I of them, so much so that I grilled my grandma about our heritage as she had mentioned the possibility of African blood in our lineage before. She said her mother joked about it, but that she didn’t know of a connection in our history. Apparently my grandpa called her his squaw, but great grandma said she didn’t know why, when if anything, there was African blood in the family, not Native American. Regardless of a family link, I felt this village, the art and the women pulling at my heart. I knew I had to find a way to go there—I was determined. My best friend cautioned that she thought I was holding onto a connection to the man who had just broken my heart as he was from the same country. While this was normally a plausible possibility, this time was different.

PLANNINGI have to go to this village. This sentiment sang in my heart and soul, echoed in my brain and pounded in my chest. How was I going to make it happen when any other time I had tried to go to the African continent my plans would fall a part? I don’t mean reschedule and try again, but blew up all hopes, kind of fall a part. Plus, even if plans came together, how would I afford it on my single mom’s salary? Oh, yeah, and there was the responsibility of the single mom to schedule care for too.

Unknowingly, planning to get out of my current job, led to the money I needed to take a trip. I approached a friend about a job, and while he couldn’t give me full time work, he contracted with me for a project that paid enough for my travel. Although I needed the money, it was money that wasn’t normally in my budget, so I justified using it to go to Burkina Faso. Simultaneously my friend from Burkina Faso contacted his friend and told them I was planning a trip. Nikiema and his family offered to let me stay with them after less than one minute of us talking. It was all coming together.

My family didn’t understand why I “had” to make this trip. I just did. How do you put into words a sacred calling that wasn’t religious and involved the arts, therefore, people didn’t understand or see it as valid? How was I going to afford the trip when I already struggled financially as a single mother and received no child support or county assistance living in a one bedroom apartment with my daughter? Why did I have to travel internationally in the age of Al-Qaeda and terrorist attacks? Why was I going to a village with no electricity or running water when my idea of camping was a hotel with air conditioning and a pool? How was I going to communicate since I didn’t speak any of the languages? Yes that’s plural; French is the colonial official language but there are numerous ethnic and tribal languages spoken as well. These questions still plagued my mind, just as they did for the month that family and friends asked them, as the smell of stale coffee and cheap plane food filled my nostrils. Yep, a month. All the pieces came together in one month from idea to flight.

TRAVELINGThe plane made a hard left while descending, making the view of the land more visible. The red dirt of mother Africa spread out as far as the eye could see. That is of what I could see between the water drops. Tears were flowing from my eyes and rain was pouring from the clouds. I had only just glimpsed at this land, not even set foot yet, and I was already sad I’d have to leave. I could no longer smell the coffee, but instead tasted the salt of my tears. It was an immediate connection to my heart that I could feel swelling in my chest, just like when I found the village online. Where did this intense, instinctive pull come from?

Walking down the stairs of the plane onto the hot tarmac, I unknowingly wiped the only semblance left of a good first impression from my clammy face, as beads of sweat pearled on my forehead. Luckily, I always carried lip stick in my purse, as it was the only thing to help my disheveled look. My 24 hour journey from St Cloud, Minnesota, USA to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, West Africa took 48 hours because of plane mechanical issues in Brussels, Belgium. All clothes and toiletries were in my checked suitcase that stayed on the plane as they took me and the other passengers to a hotel for the night.

I like to look good and feel comfortable when I travel, as you never know who you will meet, but this time I was neither. I was wearing the same floor length sleeveless plum dress that was now wrinkly, yet it shapely fit in the stomach to flatter my recent drastic weight loss caused by my heartbreak, and it caressed my breasts enough to show they were there but didn’t reveal too much. My teeth were unbrushed, I had no makeup except what was leftover on my face from the day before, and my short, strawberry blonde, spiky hair was messy—even for a style that was meant to be that way—and my eyes were baggy. It was a sign of what was to come as I didn’t wear makeup the whole trip because it melted off of my face and my hair protested spiking in the 110 plus degree Fahrenheit heat.

Now the baggy eyes weren’t the airlines fault. Most of that was eight years of single motherhood to an overactive child and a natural inability to sleep when I travel. They were kind enough to put us up in a hotel, but a few of us strangers became quick friends and decided to tour Brussels with our unexpected day passes. The visas were much easier for myself and fellow Americans as we immediately got a stamp in our passport with no questions asked. Our counterparts from other countries however were questioned and it took them about an hour to obtain.

At least my jewelry was on point though. My earrings, long layers of purple and sparkly, and a hippy purse strapped across my body, met at my shoulders and complimented the charm bracelet watch I made of elephants, purple and sparkles. My feather shaped non-sterling silver bracelet, I know this because it later turned my wrist green, and the African pendant around my neck were gifts from the most recent ex that broke my heart and led me to painting and this adventure. My iridescent purple wrap was from two ex-boyfriends ago. The ring, a pearl I got in Hawaii when visiting my brother before he deployed to Afghanistan, was set and engraved with my daughter’s name and worn on my ring finger. I was committed to her and done with these exes as I looked forward to this adventure that was going to help me grow. Little did I know just how much.

The temperature was at least 110 degrees Fahrenheit as I walked into the airport. If you add the fact that there was no air conditioning, no ventilation and hundreds of bodies crammed together waiting for luggage, my natural Minnesota windchill calculator switched modes and figured the heat index was 120 degrees. I started to over heat, as I don’t sweat, and thought I’d become a puddle like left by the rain. Thankfully when the customs agent and I didn’t speak the same language, he said, “American?” and waved me through. Nikiema and Tapsoba picked me up in a car without a/c. What was I doing? How was I going to survive? This I questioned, but instinctively knowing who was there to pick me up because their faces called to me like a long lost relative, sharing the road with roaming livestock and armed police and military holding what looked like Russian semi-automatic weapons from WWII or the cold war, seemed natural and didn’t phase me as we made our way through the city of Ouagadougou to the home they were taking me into without questions or knowing who I was, other than their friend asking them to welcome me.

Sarah Drake

Sarah Shares Stories. I'm an artist, author and activist, trying to make a better world for my daughter and others. Weekly blog posts detailing my travel to Tiebele, Burkina Faso and the founding of herARTS in Action.